Knitting Cables without a Cable Needle

Youngest diva Meave has been sick since Tuesday...viral chest thing, fever, and croup that sounds the way I imagine whooping cough sounds. This past Tuesday night, after her first day of missing school, she crawled into my bed without me knowing. At 2:41 am, she coughed...she loosed the foghorn from hell and scared the bejeezus out of me!!! I was sitting straight up wondering where I should punch first before I realized that that horrendous sound was coming from my little 7 yr-old curled up next to me. She did fall asleep right after that, but I spent the rest of the night listening to her breathe, ready to scoop her up and head to the ER. I have never heard croup that bad and Molly had viral croup that set off asthma several times.

So, the next morning, while I was waiting in the pediatrician's office with the coughing-choking diva, I was knitting as usual. Just the little cabled shrug I am making for her. I was doing what I do (cabling without a cable needle) and this older woman was watching me and declared that in her lifetime of knitting she had never seen that done. I have to admit I was surprised and then said that I never use a cable needle. You would have thought I was committing heresy by the shocked look on her face, and then she said snidely that I obviously have not done anything all that complicated yet.

I was contemplating my polite yet not-so-subtle snarky comeback when the nurse called for my daughter...just as well 'cause the woman looked ready to wrap my circular needles around my neck!!!

It's knitting, not brain surgery!!!!

So that incident spurred me on to this post.

I simply do not DO cable needles. It is just one more thing for me to lose!!! I have 6 pairs of glasses because I lose them between the couch and the bathroom at least 3 times a week...and they return to my plane of reality when they freaking feel like it!

I tried cabling with the needle once, when I decided to do a whole sweater in cables when my father had his heart transplant and hanging in the hospital was our life. Bought one, used it for half of one row...then figured it out differently. I truly could not see the logic when NOT using one was so easy...at least for me.

So this is a pictorial of what I do...for every cable no matter the size. I have no trouble with gauge, or holes or any other demon I read about. It works for me............ so THERE, testy-lady-in-the-waiting-room!

This is my photographer, Diva Maggie. A good diva always gets pics of herself first. Lovely, eh?


This is a 6-stitch, left twisting cable. I think of this differently than patterns write it because I am not putting any stitches onto a cable needle to just hang out front or back. Here are my beginning 6 stitches.


1) Since the first 3 stitches are going to cross over the front (left-twisting), I am reaching to the back for the next 3 stitches.


2) Here I have put my needle thru the 2nd set of 3 stitches...all 6 are still on my left needle.


3) Here I am gathering all 6 stitches under my right thumb in preparation to slide them all off of the left needle (3 stitches are still on the right needle).


4) I have slid them off...the 3 stitches on the right are free while the next 3 on the left are on the right needle.


5) Now I insert my left needle into the 3 free stitches...


6) ...and then pull them across so my needles are now in their correct positions (so sorry for the blur). The 3 free stitches are now in front of the back 3.


7) Next, I transfer the stitches back to the left needle, 1...

...2...

...3...


8) ...and then knit all six off of the left needle as usual. ( sorry for ANOTHER freaking blur...need to talk to my photographer about that blue sugar she uses on her gums...)


And there you have it! A cable.


If I am going to do a right twisting cable, then I am going after the second set of 3 stitches from the front...

...grab them...

... and repeat from # 3 on in opposition. Here I have grabbed the 3 free stitches with my left needle to the back...


I imagine there are other ways of doing this, but this is my habit now. It is fast, I have no extra little needle to lose, and I can even do it only half-looking, you know, when there is some young hot guy on tv that I have to keep my eye on...

Here is another tutorial from WendyKnits...it is the same technique (great minds, and all that!), but you can see what she is doing a bit more clearly...I am sure her photographer was not hopped up on a blue sugar retainer!